Magdalena Tulli - Flaw

The commander still has no idea that his men are being laughed at behind their backs. He does not spare himself; he and his guards do what they can to improve the situation. Searching constantly for a good way out, he thought for some time about the entrance to the storm drain, as a literal exit. This new idea brought hope that it would be possible to lead the crowd out of the square, and perhaps even to send them off for good into the unknown, so that someone else, somewhere else, would have to deal with the whole problem. The commander sent two people to lift the iron grille and take a look inside. This they did without delay. But, as they ran up to report, under the grille no drain was to be seen. There was only packed sand, in which the trademark of the ironworks was imprinted like a seal.

During this time someone well hidden from view had the leader of the guard in the sights of a revolver. It was the bigger of the two boys who had been sitting together like the best of friends on the roof of the government offices, concealed among the chimneys. He followed the commander right and left with the barrel, from time to time removing his glasses, which kept misting over. At these moments he had to do something with the revolver. Thrusting it into the waistband of his pants, a rather uncomfortable operation, he took out his handkerchief and wiped the spectacles. His pal plucked at his shoulder, asking for the gun, and though he was smaller he evidently expected to be given it in the end. In the meantime, the streetcar had pulled up at the stop and had unexpectedly shielded the order guard and its commander. The barrel of the gun, trembling slightly in the older boy’s hand, moved away from the streetcar at random, up to the level of the second floor, and all at once in the sights there was the silhouette of a woman standing in the window of an apartment at number seven — a mother of children and wife of the notary. The instant her profile appeared, her son hurriedly handed over the gun, as if it were burning him. Was he afraid that the finger could pull the trigger of its own accord, before the head forbade it? In the hands of the younger boy, the news seller from number eight, the barrel luckily swung away from the window and selected a new target, for the boy’s thoughts too were drifting towards different regions. The mongrel, principal cause of the wrongs he had suffered, had appeared in the sights. His finger on the trigger, he followed the dog’s every move, biting his lip harder and harder, till finally he lowered the gun and cursed, his voice breaking, because for some reason he was unable to shoot.

If events take a different turn, towards more merciful solutions than could have been expected, it is only because the rules, like everything else in the vicinity, are not functioning properly. But even if they sometimes go wrong, they still remain permanently inscribed in the background, like the lines simulating perspective on the plywood boards: an immovable and always current system of reference. The censored fragments sawed out of the boards will change nothing here either — even if the lines are removed, they continue to be imagined. As for the gun, it could only belong to the notary. It was the son, impatiently awaited by his mother, who had taken it from their home. Some time ago he had managed to sneak in the back door while his father was gone and had removed the revolver from the latter’s desk drawer. As he tiptoed down the long hallway to the kitchen door, shoes in hand, he could not help noticing that the always open door to the maid’s room was now closed. For a moment he even stood outside it and listened intently, a look of astonishment on his round, boyish face. In the end he peeked through the keyhole. He could see a student cap tossed carelessly on a stool. Then he was able to go unhurriedly into the kitchen, where lunch was going cold in the pots, waiting in vain for its time to come. He took a couple of chicken legs, wrapping them in the personals page of the newspaper.

Where the revolver in the drawer came from will never be established. It could have lain there dormant for years. When a warm human body comes close, a single moment suffices to wake it up. The gun’s very shape is, for the hand, a meaningful sign. But meaningful in a special way that seems on the surface to be removed from reality, foreign to the innocent language of everyday things, for example, bread knives and soupspoons. Yet one touch is enough for all the fingers to know instantly where they belong and what this is about. The middle and ring fingers close around the grip; the index finger quickly finds the trigger. It’s entirely possible that the revolver, by its nature a symbolic object, becomes literal only when it is brought to life by the sufferings of a secondary character, by his fevered and angry thoughts. Those thoughts too are looking for release, since no grievances or reparations have been provided for here, and no one knows what to do with such an excess of ill feeling. All one can do is drown in it.

It is impossible to combat the illicit weapons that have proliferated secretly, beyond the control assured by the invoices. Individual items surface at rare moments, in secluded corners, when a romance has turned imperceptibly into a crime story, a farce into a drama. On the basis of the invoices it’s easy to declare the opposite belief, asserting that guns do not exist at all. It would have been better if this were true. If what was in circulation were only painted props made of wood and cardboard, with pretend bullets. But the secondary character, filled with festering resentment, will never be satisfied with this. He knows too much about things to be taken in. In the cylinder of the revolver taken from the drawer, fortunately, there is only a single round. This gun can be fired just once. But, as would be true anywhere, one shot will be enough to move things forward with a bang, in the least expected direction. On the other hand, there are many ways to prevent the shot even at the last moment, so long as the glint of an oxidized barrel is spotted in time. The gun is once again shaking in the hands of the older boy as he waits patiently for the streetcar to pull away and expose the school yard on which the commander is presently receiving reports from his men. The newsboy, his dirty cheeks streaked with tears, is greedily chewing a chicken leg. The notary’s son is already starting to get bored. The streetcar remains at the stop outside the grammar school for so long that it eventually becomes clear it will never leave.

If I am the driver, I realized a while back that something is up. To begin with, I just stare through the windshield at the places where the rails are joined together, but then I get out of the car, determined to take a closer look. I see that the rails have not been fastened to the baseplates the way they should. Actually, there are no baseplates at all; the rails are barely held together with figures-of-eight twisted by hand out of thick wire and fixed in place with nuts. Unable to believe my eyes, I go up to the next joint. Its nuts have fallen out; someone evidently couldn’t even be bothered to tighten the bolts properly. At the next joint the wire figure-of-eight is snapped. I prod the rail with the tip of my boot and watch it tip over. So that’s how they laid the tracks! But who did it? That the driver cannot know. And when? Before hand, that much is clear even to him. In the recent or distant past. In a past that seems, like cause and effect, to be linked to the present moment but does not belong to it at all. Just as the rails need wooden baseplates, the base of an agreed-upon past is needed by events, but only so as to stabilize their course. It holds them permanently on the right track and removes various doubts that otherwise might lead to a derailment. As long as it continues to do its job, the characters submit to the illusion that they understand the sense of everything in which they have become embroiled.